G.O.P.: R.I.P.

So there it stands: a naked, pigeon-chested old man, random strands of white hair on its boney shoulders; its swollen-knuckled hands clasped over its dead genitals, looking at once forlorn and menacing, shivering with self-loathing and xenophobia, raging pathetically at its timely and appropriate defeat at the hands of Reason.

Ladies and gentlemen: The Republican Party.

With every passing day, the people who stubbornly, maddeningly cling to an obsolete ideal and who stand in the way of the cultural advancement of this country, this America, spew the base reality of their caustic ideology into the air.

The Republican Party is like a dying tyrant, mad with syphilis, ironically like that very Stalin they would accuse their enemies of associating with. How else to account for their desperation to resurrect the wraith of Joseph McCarthy; the hammy and baffling utterances from high level party officials like Boehner and McConnell; the blatant desire on their part to let the country fail out of sheer resentment; the wanton sedition of Conservative shit-stirrers ranging from the quasi Madame Defarge Michele Bachmann to the porcine, pill-popping porcine propagandist Rush Limbaugh?

It is an all out assault on reason, on progress, on truth. What is the difference between the Republican Party and, say, the Taliban? A rogue by any other name would smell as rank. Their frantic accusations all churned out in a futile effort to explain their current pariah status is as pathetic and draconian as stoning a woman in the street.

I feel I must apologize for my own particularly febrile anger. It's unseemly and ugly. But finally, the enemy is clearly outlined. We can see it for what it is and what it always has been. It exists not in myth but in a reality which has plagued humanity for millennia: utter, hateful ignorance born from a fear of truth, indeed a fear of life itself; a mad and impotent pursuit of some long-forgotten ecstasy having spawned generations of paranoid power addicts who chase the past at the expense of the future, cloaking their real intentions in perfumed patriotism and the seductive swoon of religion.

It's so fitting that we are living in an age where beheadings, torture, piracy and now unbridled power mongering are all common place. Perhaps that element of humanity is going back into hibernation and is snapping at any and everything before its eyes finally close. In our lifetime the choice has never been so stark.

Don't be intimidated by that naked, pigeon-chested old man. His party's over.

Comments

[juanfidalgo]

I find your rhetoric distasteful and inaccurate.

The Republican Party Leadership certainly has been violating the conservative principles of its own members for a long time. Now those MEMBERS are starting to gain some independence from the party leadership. Constitutional Republicans are seeing a resurgence demonstrated by sites like:

http://www.libertybands.org

As a matter of fact this site applies to ALL Americans that are faithful to the constitution. Many of these people have been drawn to the Democratic side of the isle by the same treachery that the republican party leadership is suffering for but in their hearts are true Americans that are loyal to the constitution.

[WriteStuffNYC]

"Perfumed patriotism" sure is a tasty trope!

In a way, these are comforting sentiments, pithy pronouncements and gleeful damnations, Steve, especially that the party is over. But is it really? Sure, they're naked now, bankrupt of any fresh ideas, given to obstruction and fear-mongering rather than really participating in government while purportedly serving in it. Given the propensity of the American electorate to be duped by paper-thin slogans of the Right, though -- example: the retrospective canonization of Ronnie Raygun by the Right and the tacit approval of same by the too-nice-by-half, bubble-headed Left -- and the concomitant identification of the Right's icons with easy-to-counterfeit conservative political thought ("government is the problem" and "get the government off the backs of the people"), are they really, truly dead? Let's not be naive while they raise one ruckus after another until the wheel turns and the voters forget what a mess they made. They'll be back, and we should all be prepared to fight that war when it occurs. They need to be relegated to the history of extinct US parties, and that will take a string of elections where they go down hard and finally morph into a couple of new mini-parties.

[ThinkLiberal]

I tip my hat to you Mr. Weber, you managed to pen an exceptionally accurate analysis of the slow-motion demise of the Grand Obstructionist Party and its generals. One can only imagine how far ahead this country could be without their cancerous influence. Remember in the early '90s when Bill Clinton proposed something as logical as providing computers in classrooms and public libraries, to give our kids a leg up? Anyone remember the daily coordinated hues and cries of opposition that came from the rePublicCons??!! They have consistently stood in the way of anything that would better the lives of the average American. Is it any wonder why after 8 nightmarish years in the WH, no one can point to even one area where Boosh's leadership has benefited the life of the average man-on-the-street? Enough of the party of Cons.

[soonhappyamerica]

Your description of the republican party is dead-on. It could not be overstated. All that you have said is completely true! Great article. Now let's hope these old men and women holding their dead genitals will go away forever.

[SickStan]

Madame LaFarge

[Cnutz50]

This guy should thank his thesaurus for helping him write this... ** poseur alert ** poseur alert!! I liked him better in "Wings".

[catallaxdeville]

premature. stay focused, stay cool.

[Organic-Guy]

It is incorrect to call the current GOP conservative. They conserve nothing. If anything they seem to angry because we are all talking about true conservation for a change, conservation of land, natural resources, money, human resources, pretty much being conservative on every front.
The so called conservatives had an orgy of spending and power over the past 30 years and now they freak out when they get told no, you can't do that anymore, change is going to happen whether you like it or not. Real conservation is the new deal and they can't stand it. I'm not sure what the current GOP is but they sure aren't conservatives.

[ReservoirDog]

...hold on organic-guy......

they truly are "compassio­nate-conve­rsatives"

that is, they are extremely conversative with their compassion......

unless of course, your talking CEO executive pay & bonuses !

[DonRoberto]

I agree with your sentiments, Mr. Weber, but have to disagree with your conclusion. Even if the GOP disappeared tomorrow, the GOP base would remain --- still anxious to protect their financial and corporate interests, many still angry and irrational, still jingoistic, still racist, etc. --- and many of them heavily armed. In a political vacuum, someone will organize these people; then as now, someone will use that anger and anxiety to further their own interests.

Our best hope is that reasonable people within the GOP --- if such still exist --- find a way to wrest control away from the Christian militants, the white supremacists, and the corporatist/fascist ideologues calling the shots. Only rational leadership, something long lacking in the GOP, can peacefully defuse the ticking timebomb of potential violence lurking amongst the current Republican base.

[SteveStephens]

and just think Karl Rove and the Republican mission statement over the last 8 years was to consolidate power for generations, and they did just that, for the Democrats.

[Savojah]

This is a pretty naive thinking. The GOP is over? If you look at many of the European progressive country, there is still a conservative element. Look at France. Sarkozy represents the UPM. Sorry, but the same thing was said about the Dems in the 1980s. I do believe that the GOP is down because of the Bush hangover, but I won't count them out. Granted that some of the tactics and their message right now only appeals to a faithful base. And if they plan on rolling people out there like Palin and Jindal, then their trek will be hard. And if they don't understand the times that we're in, where we need cooperation rather than division, then it could be a possibility that. But to say that their dead is laughable.

A lot banks on the success on Obama, and the GOP is rolling the dice to hoping he fails. If he succeeds, then you could say that the GOP is in danger. But to bank on failure, which the GOP is doing I believe is wrong. They're worried about winning an election, when they should worried about the economy, jobs, and getting our troops home. So time will tell, but historys shows that there will always be a conservative element in politics.

[ywcachieve]

The party's o----ver!

[rabiddog6708]

The GOP is now a regional party, a confederation of souther white men who long for the return of 1950s America, a time when they were Kings and those minority types were kept in their place via segregation. Women were still, by and large, submissive, and had not yet become a threatening force in both the workplace and in social life. The birth control pill had not come along. Rock n Roll had not yet transformed their kiddies into juvenile hoodlums. America had won the Big War and stood atop the globe as Top Dog.

[formerprosecutor]

What is sad is, that they convince women and people of color to go along with them. It is a mystery to me.

[scott63]

GOP RIP? a bit premature, it will be along time before the Dem's will be able to fire up the base and call together so many other people of differing political stripe, Obama was historical people wanted to be apart of history, that train has left the station it will never happen again, the first time voters that turned out to make history will vanish, this whole moment for the Dem's is over it has shot it's wad and will only lose steam from this point on, It has no place else to go. Unless of course the majority of Americans become slaves to government handouts and we slip into a massive welfare state then all choice will be gone.

[kmswriter]

When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." -- Jonathan Swift

[ThomasPaineWeNeedYou]

Think about Abe Lincoln and the Southern rebellion or confederacy.

[DonRoberto]

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. --- Albert Einstein

[jchastn]

What a crock. The Democratic successes of the last two elections have nothing to do with "making history" . They were, and the party still is, about SAVING THIS NATION. Bush and the rovepublican party had almost completly sold this nation to the chinese and we want to try to get it back. Rovepublican greed in the form of "de-regulation" of finance and business has very nearly destroyed the nation and Americans have finally woken up to how corrupt and hateful and dishonest the Republicans really are. Now we are stuck with war debt that has made many republicans, in particular the Bushes and the Cheneys enormously wealthy and has devalued the T-bill.The right wing rhetoric is the biggest lie ever conceived and FOX news needs to shut up and die. The only thing that will ever "trickle down" from republicans is the blood of our sons and daughters, and the sweat of workers who's real wages have been declining since we got suckered in by the GOP.

[FatBoysComedyClubs]

I agree with your comments, but they will be back. Right now they are positioning themselves to take advantage of any mistakes Obama makes. America wil forget that Neo cons ever existed, and they will be back. We still think taxes are bad, we still think Gov't can be too big. We forget and history repeats it self. That's why we're in this second depression and umpteenth recession...

[katermc]

Great writing!! I see them the same way -- just not as articulately as you do. Thanks. It was a pleasure to read this piece.